This story was inspired by two things. I had a bit of an emergency and had to call for a taxi to rescue me. The taxi driver turned out to have almost exactly the same physical disabilities as me, albeit for different reasons. As I was getting out of his car, he said,
"Of course, there is a huge difference between you and me, pal. Your wife stayed. Mine didn't -- she didn't sign up to be a carer. She wanted a man who was fit and well."
It made me very sad. He was correct, though; I am very lucky to have my wonderful and loyal wife still beside me after thirty years. She would say she's the lucky one because I'm still here and there were a couple of times in the past few years when that seemed like it might not happen. So, she is happy to have what's left of me, though she does wonder why I love a good BTB!
The other thing that inspired this story was a letter to an Agony Aunt I recently read about a man who felt that his support of his grieving brother-in-law had been abused. He had started to feel like a third wheel when his wife and brother-in-law were together.
I wrote it for my own pleasure, but I hope that you enjoy it. If you don't, please don't send me more death threats. It is only a story and though it is flattering that anything I write may evoke strong feelings, it isn't real. I don't think I deserve to die if you don't like my treatment of a particular character. Please don't waste your time because God has had plenty of chances to take me lately and he obviously doesn't want me just yet.
This will be my last story for a little while as I am waiting for three different surgeries, but I will continue to read more on here and hopefully, one day soon inspiration will strike again.
I sat looking at my luggage and the plastic bags sitting beside them. It was hard to see what was left of my life in a sad little pile. It wasn't meant to be like this. It was all going to be so different. I didn't want any of this. Well, you don't always get what you want, do you? That was the problem until very recently. I always got what I wanted on the whole.
I was the baby of the family. My sister Kate was six years older than me. My mum and dad had been trying to have me, their much-wanted second child, for years. You might have thought that my sister would have resented me or been jealous. No, that wasn't the case. I was 'her baby', not her baby sister, her baby lovingly provided by my parents for her to love. A real-life dolly that resembled the one she'd got the previous Christmas. I could even wear the same clothes.
I was universally adored, well, at home anyway. At school, I encountered the odd sour teacher immune to my charms. Fair enough, it was their loss. A few of the girls were nasty at Uni because of the way their boyfriend's eyes lingered, or their hands strayed occasionally. That wasn't my fault, was it? It wasn't like I encouraged them.
Anyway, I'd met Glen by then. My big, strong, handsome husband. He was my prince. He adored me. He couldn't do enough for me. It was not a one-sided relationship entirely. I loved him, too, of course. I was very much into the treat them mean, keep them keen, school of thinking, but I was careful never to go too far, just enough to keep him in line. Not enough to annoy him enough to leave me. Glen was gorgeous then. The girls were queuing up for him, but he was too busy looking in my direction to notice. He was so handsome and seemingly unaware of it.
We married soon after university, he started to work in the insurance business, and I became an administrator at the local college. He was successful, and we were comfortable, if not rich. He could have done more but insisted on a good work-life balance. His father was a workaholic and died when Glen was twelve before he felt he had even got to know him. Glen didn't want to make the same mistake and be working all the hours of the day. He worked hard but wanted to spend lots of time with me and our daughters when they came along. He was and is a real family man, a wonderful father to Alison and Emma.
I struggled at times with motherhood. It didn't come naturally to me. I adored my girls, don't get me wrong, but I struggled when they became more independent. Glen found fatherhood easy, though. He never neglected me either with date nights or holidays, and we had a fantastic sex life until he got ill. Even then, he was still good on occasions, as one part of him thought he was still a teenager.
Glen had developed rheumatoid arthritis. He'd retired and Glen was frustrated by his condition at first. He was very down and he went through a mourning stage, but being Glen, he eventually got through it. He said he was being selfish and self-indulgent and he needed to get a grip and get on with life. That was Glen. He wasn't selfish at all, unlike me. He did reasonably well, considering his mobility was limited and his pain. He couldn't stand or walk for long. He had a cane, a walker, a wheelchair and a mobility scooter. He used a combination of all of them depending on how his condition was that day.
Seeing my big strong husband almost shrink before my eyes was so hard for me. Yet not one person asked how I was coping or dealing with it. Poor Glen, he deserved so much better than me. The one thing he hated was me having to lift his chair or scooter in and out of the car. That really upset him to see me struggle with it. I suppose I didn't help because I did a lot of huffing and puffing about it. I'm the first to admit I'm not a natural nurse. I'll also admit that Glen would never have complained if the shoe was on the other foot. He would have looked after me. Even in pain, he was still solicitous of my needs. He looked after me. That's why what I did was so awful. I felt I deserved it. The truth was, I didn't deserve it, and neither did he.
My sister Kate and I had always kept in touch. Despite her best efforts, we weren't the closest of sisters. The family was so important to Glen that he ensured we met for birthdays and celebrations. He made all the effort on my behalf. In turn, Kate adored him and her son, Ryan, idolised his Uncle Glen as he always showed an interest in him. Kate always said she gained the best brother ever when I married Glen. I couldn't say the same when she married her husband, Peter. He was OK, but he was the opposite of my Glen. He was self-centred and narcissistic. I couldn't see it, but he was the male version of me. Glen found him hard work at times, but he coped and was patient when Peter boasted about all his wealth or tried to dominate the conversation. I think Peter saw this as a sign of weakness in Glen, a beta to his alpha. He once called Glen 'the plodder', and I should have defended my lovely Glen. I should have, but I didn't.
It was a shock when Kate died. She was 68; there was no warning of an aneurysm. Peter was devastated and he couldn't function initially. The alpha male had relied entirely on my sister, who had quietly worked behind the scenes, polishing his star. Without her, he was rudderless.
Glen, of course, was wonderful. He included Peter more, anxious that he wasn't on his own. He was very sensitive about people pushing him in his wheelchair. A stranger once pushed him out of the way in the supermarket. It was one of the few times I've ever seen him lose it. He was so cross. The only people he trusted to push him were me, the girls, our nephew Ryan and Peter. That was a big thing for Glen. That's how much he trusted Peter. He shouldn't have done.
How could I have listened to Peter and all his rubbish? He started working on me practically from the day after Kate's funeral.
"Could you come and help me sort out her things, Christina? I just can't face it on my own."
He needed my help and I soon realised he was letting things go in the house, too. That beautiful house. It would go to rack and ruin if I didn't step in. I sorted out a cleaning service but popped in often to check on him and do other jobs around the house. He seemed so lost and lonely and I liked being needed and helping him. That was unusual for me. I felt quite virtuous, selfless almost. I was helping my brother--in--law in his time of need. Perhaps at age 62, I was finally maturing?
Why was I so keen to help him? Yet so irritated when helping my lovely Glen, who really needed my help. I was so frustrated by the time everything took to accommodate his needs. The planning we needed to make when we were going out for the day or travelling. It made everything hard work. It was easy with Peter; I didn't pull away when he held my hand as we walked along the canal. I held it tight. It was such a long time since I had walked with a man holding my hand. I missed it. I was so selfish, you see. I loved spending time in Peter's house too. Glen and I had a lovely home, but it wasn't the big detached house with the electric gates that Kate had enjoyed. It was so spacious and after a while, I pretended that it was my house, that I was the Queen of all I surveyed. It was an easier life than I had at home.
